66: Fortepiano, pianoforte

A thematic edition focused on the keyboard

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune is a Joey Special. Here’s your hint: This composer is supposed to have written 42(!) operas.

As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at toneprose@substack.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing. 

Last Week’s Results
Tone Prose 65
Glazunov, The Seasons: Autumn

As the week wore on, I (Will) was getting nervous that this was going to ruin our recent streak of listener success, but then Listener Laurie weighed in with a spectacular guess full of intuition, deduction, and knowledge. 

She correctly identified this as Russian ballet music, and narrowed it down by eliminating Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. That left her with a fascinating assortment of works and composers, including Glière, Khachaturian, Tcherepnin, and the winning answer, Glazunov, and she even mentioned The Seasons in her guess!

Listener Ellen weighed in via text due to technical complications, and was sure that she had heard the piece before, perhaps as a radio call signal. That’s where I first heard the piece, and for the longest time I didn’t know what it was. Interestingly, Glazunov’s own recording (featured in the clip last week) is WAY slower than one ever hears this piece performed otherwise.

Joey and Listener Micahel heard the piece as much more modern, weighing in with Williams, Korngold, and Hansen.

Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!

Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.

The Lost Sound

 This is a documentary freely available on YouTube about the restoration of an early 19th-century fortepiano built by Nannette Streicher, a close personal friend of Beethoven’s.

If that sounds dry as dust, I understand, but I (Will) started watching it and I couldn’t turn it off. In its one-hour running time, you get a glimpse of the insanity of people who collect and deal these antique instruments, the craftspeople who repair them, the musicians who play them, and the various governmental and non-profit edifices that allow it all to happen. It’s very well made and I recommend it most highly.

Pianoforte Trailer

The documentaries roll forth, this time with a trailer for Pianoforte, a film that follows several competitors as they make their way through the Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. The trailer looks great, and I (Will) hope I’ll get to see the full picture at the cinema.

While we’re waiting, you can get a front row seat of what it’s like being involved in a big international piano competition from one of the competitors themself — just read below!

Competition Report

This past week, I (Joey) crossed the pond for a competition based at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music. Look how splendiferous their concert hall is:

There was even a huge Christmas tree at the back of stage left for the final round!

The James Mottram International Piano Competition held its inaugural concourse in 2008, at the bequest of James Mottram, a Salford University politics professor with a keen interest in the piano. According to the director of the competition, he left a large sum of money in his will for the establishment of this biennial competition. We — by which I mean the 28 other competitors and myself — got to experience his generosity personally, as we were all lodged for the entire week, regardless of how far we advanced.

The competition was held in three rounds. The first round featured a 30-minute “half recital” by each of us, a two-day affair that must have been an absolute nightmare for the 6-member jury. Then there was a second round where all but ten competitors were eliminated, and finally a concerto round for three finalists. 

I’m happy to say that I believe the right person won. Jung Eun Séverine Kim, a piano professor in Hanover, played an excellent Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in the finals after two other excellent performances earlier in the week.

Why Beethoven 4, instead of the more typical Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, or Liszt in the final round of the competition? Well, Mr. Mottram’s taste in piano repertoire focused on the works of Scarlatti, Chopin, and Debussy, and his interest did not extend beyond the latter’s death in 1918. Thus, he insisted that no repertoire written after that year be allowed in the competition, much to my chagrin. (Even the director of the competition is unhappy about this particular facet, as he says that new music is a large part of the mission of the RNCM as a whole.)

Nevertheless, this meant that my first round performance consisted of a Scarlatti sonata (required), a large work by Chopin (also required), and selections from Ravel’s Miroirs (my choice). This is relatively conservative by my standards, but I was, after all, there under the auspices of Mr. Mottram’s generosity!

I was eliminated after the first round, but the week was great fun for me all the same. (Undoubtedly actually more fun after I was eliminated.) This competition’s best feature is that after elimination, each contestant gets to play in a public masterclass for one of the jury members, so I got to watch hours of excellent teaching and then play for Emanuel Krasovsky myself. Of course, I also got to watch the continuing rounds of the competition. Finally, I had the chance to explore some galleries and Christmas markets in Manchester too, before falling ill (as around half of the competitors and two jurors did by the end of the week). 

In short, it was a fulfilling experience. Many musicians, myself included, have serious concerns about the merit of comparing young artists’ art, and with good reason. But this competition upheld its philanthropic mission to lift up everyone involved, and I had a great time.

Tone Praise

CPE Bach, Violin Sonata in C minor

I (Will) have had this album playing on repeat since watching that fortepiano documentary. Kristian Bezuidenhout is one of the artists featured in the film, so I started looking up his recordings. He’s got great renditions of concertos and solo sonatas by Mozart and Haydn, but when I saw CPE Bach among his discography, I really perked up.

Lo and behold, his partner here is Rachel Podger on the violin, who to me is a living legend, having made one of the all-time great recordings of Daddy Bach’s solo partitas and sonatas. If you’re into this kind of stuff, you won’t a better way to while away 72 minutes.

Tone Prose is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)